Mrs. Eppingwell! Oh, you told me about her once. She was the woman who was with you on that trip through the Hills of Silence. She is a very brave woman. I have heard much of her, and I like her. If I were a man, I could love her. She must be very good, and sweet, and kind. SITKA CHARLEY Sure. And um hard like iron sometimes. But um no like you. Um say so. What for um no like you? FREDA _(Gently.)_ No woman likes me, Charley. SITKA CHARLEY All men like you. FREDA _(With touch of anger.)_ All men are fools. SITKA CHARLEY What for womans no like you? FREDA _(Meditatively)_. And she likes Vanderlip. How do you know? What do you know? SITKA CHARLEY No can tell. I promise. FREDA Promised whom? SITKA CHARLEY Mrs. Eppingwell. Um Mrs. Eppingwell very good woman. FREDA But she has a husband. It is not good for her to like another man. What do you think? SITKA CHARLEY _(Perplexedly.)_ I think I don't know. I think all um womans crazy. What for all um womans like this Vanderlip man? FREDA _(Decisively.)_ Well, I don't. SITKA CHARLEY _(Sceptically.)_ Um. FREDA Let me show you, Charley, and then you will know why I want you to help me. And, remember, you mustn't tell a word of any of this to any one. SITKA CHARLEY _(Debating the proposition.)_ Um--maybe I tell Mrs. Eppingwell. FREDA _(Angrily.)_ Don't be silly, Charley. You mustn't tell anybody. Promise me now. SITKA CHARLEY _(With despairing perplexity.)_ All right, I no tell. FREDA Now this little girl is coming in over the ice--her name is Flossie. She has lived a soft life down in California, where the sun is warm and there is no snow. She does not know hardship, nor the trail, and she is having a hard time now on the trail. Think of it!--sixty-five degrees below zero this morning, and she is out in it, walking, walking, walking, her breath freezing, her mouth icing up, her eyebrows rimed with frost. And she is very stiff, and sore, and tired. Every step of the trail she takes in pain. It is like a bad dream to her, Charley. But she sees, always before her, at the end of the dream, an awakening at Dawson, in the arms of the man who is to marry her. But, Charley, what if when she gets to Dawson there is no Floyd Vanderlip? no man to marry her? It will break her heart. It will be no happy awakening from a bad dream, but the beginning of a worse dream. And she is a little girl, Charley--not a strong woman like me who does not care. She will care, and she will know nobody, and she will cry, and cry, and cry. Did you ever hear a woman cry, Charley? Think of it, she is only a little girl. SITKA CHARLEY Um. More like baby. FREDA Yes, put it that way, more like a baby. She cannot stand pain. SITKA CHARLEY Oh, on trail, too much walk make um hurt. FREDA No, no. _(Holds hand to heart.)_ Pain here. SITKA CHARLEY Um. I know. Um sick. What um call heart disease. I see one man sick that way. Um fall down dead, just like that. FREDA _(Irritably.)_